Biography:

Renata Scotto (24 February 1934 – 16 August 2023) was an Italian soprano, opera director, and voice teacher.

Recognised for her sense of style, her musicality, and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered to have been one of the preeminent opera singers of her generation. For more than 40 years, she performed in some 45 roles, including the title roles of Verdi’s La traviata, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, and Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. She appeared in the first telecast from the Metropolitan Opera in 1977, as Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème, alongside Luciano Pavarotti.

Life and career

Scotto was born in Savona on 24 February 1934, a fishing port. Her father was a police officer and her mother a seamstress. During World War II, her mother took her and her sister to the near-by mountains, taking sewing jobs from the fascists, the Nazis and the Americans.^[1] After the war, the girl experienced her first opera in her hometown, Verdi’s Rigoletto with Tito Gobbi in the title role, and decided then, at age twelve, that she would become an opera singer.^[1]

She studied music at the Milan Conservatory,^[2] from age 16, living in a nuns’ convent, and making a living by sewing and cleaning jobs. She studied first with Emilio Ghirardini as a mezzo-soprano, and was then trained as a soprano by Mercedes Llopart.^[2] She won a competition in 1952, with the prize of a debut at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan.^[1] She performed the title role of Verdi’s La traviata, first in her home town on Christmas Eve in front of a sold-out house. The next day, she made her ‘official’ opera debut at the Teatro Nuovo. Shortly after, she performed in Savona the title role of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and was paid twenty-five thousand lire. Both roles would become closely associated with her name.

In 1953, Scotto auditioned at La Scala for the role of Walter in Catalani’s La Wally,^[2] with Renata Tebaldi and Mario del Monaco in lead roles. After her audition, one of the judges, the conductor Victor de Sabata, was heard saying, “Forget about the rest.” La Wally opened on 7 December 1953, and Scotto was called back for fifteen curtain calls while Tebaldi and Del Monaco each received seven. She was offered more supporting roles at La Scala, but rejected them in favour of performing larger roles at regional houses in Italy.^[1] She appeared at the Rome Opera in 1955 as Sophie in Massenet’s Werther, and at La Fenice in Venice in 1956 as Traviata, and as Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen.^[2]

Scotto’s major breakthrough came in 1957 when she performed at the Edinburgh Festival in a La Scala production of Bellini’s La Sonnambula; Maria Callas was cast as Amina, and it was so successful that the company added an unscheduled fifth performance. Callas, who was under contract for four performances, declined to perform in the added performance but allowed the La Scala management, who had announced her for the fifth performance without her consent, to explain her departure from the festival as being due to illness. Scotto, stepping in as Amina, performed on 3 September 1957, and became an international opera star at age 23.^[3][1] In 1961, she performed Amina again at La Fenice with tenor Alfredo Kraus with whom she shared the same teacher, Llopart, and a long professional association to come.

During the 1960s she became one of the leading singers in the belcanto revival initiated by Callas during the 1950s. She sang Bellini’s Zaira and La straniera, Donizetti’s Maria di Rohan, in Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable and other repertoire rarities. In 1964 she performed with La Scala at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the first opera company tour to the Soviet Union during the Cold War years. In 1967 she appeared at La Scala as Giulietta in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi and as Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, in 1969 as Gluck’s Euridice, and in 1970 as Elena in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani.^[2]

Her American debut was as Mimì in Puccini’s La bohème at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1960. On 13 October 1965, Scotto made her Metropolitan Opera (Met) debut as Madama Butterfly.^[1] She went on to sing more than 300 performances in 26 roles there through 1987 and settled to live with her family in nearby Westchester County. Her last role in 1987 was again Madama Butterfly.^[1]

Scotto opened the series of Live from the Met telecasts in 1977 with La bohème, alongside Luciano Pavarotti.^[1] She starred in the telecasts of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and Il trittico, Verdi’s Luisa Miller and Don Carlo, Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini, and as Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello, alongside Jon Vickers, among others.^[1]

Scotto sang regularly at the San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Dallas Opera, Royal Opera House, London, and Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires. In addition she appeared in Madrid, Genoa, Florence, Bologna, Trieste, Palermo, Berlin, Paris, Miami, Tokyo, Pittsburgh, and Osaka among others.

For more than 40 years, Scotto performed in operas written by 18 composers and her repertoire included some forty-five roles. She is best known for her performances as La traviata, Gilda in Rigoletto, Madama Butterfly, Mimì (and occasionally Musetta) in La bohème, Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, Liù in Puccini’s Turandot, Nedda in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, all three leading soprano roles in Il trittico, Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur, and Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini.

In a 1981 performance of Bellini’s Norma at the Met, some in the audience compared her to Callas, and commented during the performance; some had to be forced to leave the house. Critic Peter G. Davis noted in New York magazine: “Time and again, Scotto reminded us of her sovereign musicality, her instinctive feeling for the rhythmic life of the notes, her ability to mold finely sculpted phrases, and her sensitivity for coloring the words into emotions that instantly define a dramatic situation.”^[1]

Scotto had success at the Met in Meyerbeer’s Le prophète, Ponchielli’s La gioconda, and as Vitellia in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito. Moving into the heavier Verdi repertoire in the 1970s, she appeared as Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Luisa Miller, Lady Macbeth, Leonora in Il trovatore, and in the Requiem, all conducted by James Levine.

She is remembered as a singing actress; Plácido Domingo said in a 1978 interview: “There is an emphasis, a feeling she puts behind every word she interprets.”^[1]

In the late part of her career, Scotto took on the roles of Giordano’s Fedora (Barcelona, 1988), Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss (Charleston Spoleto Festival, 1995 and Catania), Kundry in Wagner’s Parsifal (Schwerin, 1995),^[4] Elle in Poulenc’s La voix humaine (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino 1993, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Liceu, Barcelona, 1996),^[4] Madame Flora in Menotti’s The Medium (Torino, 1999)^[4] and Klytemnestra in Elektra by Richard Strauss (Baltimore, 2000 and Sevilla, 2002). Later concert appearances included Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été, lieder by Mahler and Richard Strauss, as well as Schoenberg’s Erwartung with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and RAI Orchestra of Torino.^[4]

Credits:

Wikipedia